I stayed up and watched the first episode of The Grand Tour. I'll probably watch it again tomorrow when I have some time. Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May are the hosts of this brand new Amazon Prime program. It's currently appearing in 4 countries, USA, UK, Germany and Japan, but it will be available in over 200 countries next month. All I can say is I'll finally get some good use out of my Amazon Prime Membership. Most of what I watch on the membership hasn't been this good a quality. The new show is shot in 4K and it looks amazing.
I enjoyed the opening sequence to the show. The trio drive their cars into the desert to a mini Burning Man called Burning Van. There's a burning van hanging from a giant crane.
The Hothouse Flowers play I Can See Clearly Now while the guys drive their cars through a horde of different cars. The trio head for the stage where they say hello. That done they head for the tent.
Instead of doing the show in the same studio each week they're doing them in a tent, in a different country. The first episode has the guys in California, next week it's South Africa. They have a montage of what's coming and it all looks like fun. There were plenty of explosions too.
The guys blather on from the tent's stage area. This stage has a view, it will be used for a couple of gags later on. Besides the talking, they show some films about cars. Like the old Top Gear they feature a trio of expensive cars in an exotic location in a two part film. This week Jeremy is driving a McLaren P1, James a LaFerrari and Richard a Porsche 918. They go fast on a track in Portugal.
They have a new test track in the UK and it's called the Eboladrome. The track is called that because the shape is similar to the Ebola virus.
It's the most dangerous track anywhere in the world. There's woods, wood land critters, a cage full of electricity, an old ladies house, some sheep, and an unexploded bomb to hit if you go off the concrete. They probably have insurance. Their racing car driver has a name, Mike Skinner, and he'll be putting all the cars through time trials.
It's not too much different than the old show. I got a few laughs, saw some scenery, and heard some engines rev up. I'll look forward to the next 11 episodes.
Someone posted a copy of the episode on YouTube. It probably won't be up there long.
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